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Roberts and his family had suffered severe losses with the deaths of his eldest daughter in Darwin and later of
his wife in Katherine. In the 1970s, as Phillip was beginning to withdraw from public life, the career of his younger
brother, Silas, had flourished. In 1983, after Silas’ death, he left Ngukurr and for several years lived mainly at
Cooinda in the Kakadu National Park.
Phillip Roberts finally returned to live again at Ngukurr where he died 24 August 1988.
Aboriginal Biography Index, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Canberra; D Lockwood, I, the Aboriginal,
1962; R Levitus, personal communication; Sunday Territorian, 25 September 1988.
JEREMY LONG, Vol 3.ROBERTS, SILAS NGULATI (1925–1983), Methodist lay preacher and Aboriginal leader, was born at Roper in
1925, son of Barnabas Gabarla of the Alawa people. He was a younger brother of Phillip Waipuldanya Roberts.
He was educated at the Roper River mission school and like his brother had sound instruction in bush skills in
school holidays and after leaving school. He married Rosie and there were seven children, five of whom were
boys.
For many years employed as launch master at the Roper River mission, Silas moved with his family to
Maningrida in 1963 when the Northern Territory Administration was developing a fishing project there. He worked
firstly with the Fisheries Branch and later with the Welfare Branch. He soon became a community leader, serving
as president of the Maningrida Progress Association and of the Housing Association and becoming a Methodist
lay preacher. Broad shouldered and, like Phillip, strongly built, Silas was calm, thoughtful and articulate, and he
found varied responsibilities thrust upon him. On 18 September 1974, he was appointed a Justice of the Peace and
Special Magistrate, the first Aboriginal person to hold these appointments in the Northern Territory. He served in
this capacity at Maningrida until 1981.
When the Northern Land Council was established Silas was elected as its first chairman and he led the Council
through its crucial first years when the Land Rights Act was developed and the Ranger Uranium Environmental
Inquiry, presided over by Mr Justice Fox, was effectively determining the future of the Kakadu region. Ian Viner,
Minister for Aboriginal Affairs in the Fraser government, was later to say after he met Roberts when he and
Roy Marika travelled to Canberra in 1976, ‘The people of the Northern Territory should know that Silas and Roy
put their case with a compelling sense of justice, a quiet a quiet but determined dignity, and, moreover, as both
Territorians and Aborigines, without any sense of prejudice or racism’.
In 1978, he was awarded the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) for ‘service in the field of Aboriginal welfare’.
He was also a member of the Aged Pensions Homes Trust, President of the North Australia Legal Aid Society and
a member of a number of other committees.
In 1981, he returned to his traditional home at Ngukurr and on 31 March 1982 opened the new Roper River
police station at the request of the Northern Territory government. He was employed by the Department of
Aboriginal Affairs and credited with outstanding work in the outstations area of Ngukurr. All these responsibilities
took their toll and he was only 58 when he died at Ngukurr on 17 May 1983. Many mourners from all over the
Territory were at his burial which was described, during the tributes paid to Silas Roberts in the Legislative
Assembly, as a ‘17—plane funeral’. Canon Barry Butler, with whom Silas had travelled when he visited Arnhem
Land and Barkly stations, firstly on foot, then on pushbikes and motorbikes before a motor vehicle was possible,
conducted the service. His death, it is recorded, was hastened by self-sacrifice,’ he helped everyone, with disregard
for his own life’.
He was survived by his wife, Rosie, and seven children; his brothers Phillip and Jacob and two sisters, Mercia
and Connie. His name was remembered in the Silas Roberts Hostel in Packard Street, Larrakeyah. Among its
residents were women and children from areas outside Darwin who lived there while their children attended the
local primary school.
Aboriginal Biography Index, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Canberra; Commonwealth of Australia
Gazette S97, 6 June 1978; D Lockwood, I, the Aboriginal, 1962; Northern Territory News, 19 May 1983; Northern Territory Parliamentary
Record, 25 & 26 May 1983; press release (unsourced), State Library file; I Viner, ‘A Notable leader’, Northern Territory News, 9 June 1983.
JEREMY LONG, Vol 3.ROBERTSON, EDWARD ALBERT (TED) (1929–1991), educationalist, teacher and politician, was born in
Albany, Western Australia, on 18 March 1929, son of Mr and Mrs Neil Robertson. Ted, whose father left the
family home before he was born, was reared in his early years by his mother and maternal grandfather, who was
an active railway unionist and Labor Party member. Ted was educated at Albany High School, Claremont Teachers
College and the University of Western Australia, matriculating in 1946, monitoring as a student teacher in 1947
and completing his teacher’s training in 1948–1949.
It was during this time he decided to go searching for his father, Neil, who had gone to the Northern Territory
and become a well-known left wing unionist in Darwin in the early 1930s. Neil, also known as ‘Jock’, was among
the men arrested when riots broke out during a ‘sit down’ demonstration by the unemployed on the verandah of
the government offices in Darwin in January 1931. Born in Scotland, Neil had come to Australia after the First
World War and settled in Western Australia where he met and married Ted’s mother. When the Second World
War broke out Neil was one of the first to enlist from the Territory. He was taken prisoner on Crete and was in a
German prisoner-of-war camp for four years, returning to Darwin when the war concluded. It was then that Ted
came to Darwin, found his father and reunited his parents. Ted later observed, ‘I never really understood why they
separated in the first place because when they were reconciled after the war and my mother came to Darwin to